Iain MacGregor

Berliners were punished twice – by Hitler and by the Allies

With its large Jewish population, Berlin was never pro-fascist – which may have influenced Hitler to remodel the city which the Allies then flattened

Goebbels’s wrecked Ministry of Propaganda building in Berlin, July 1945. [Getty Images] 
issue 18 June 2022

‘Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.’ Albert Einstein’s deft avoidance of the question put to him in 1929 – whether he considered himself a German or a Jew – was prophetic of what would happen to his country in the following decade. He was just one of the many stars of Berlin, Europe’s dazzling, decadent centre of the arts and culture, whose spark would be dimmed or extinguished by Adolf Hitler.

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